Anxiety & Communication

Some individuals experience high levels of anxiety when other individuals try to converse with them. This may be because the individual is unfamiliar and they do not know what they are going to say, so could be described as being unpredictable which causes a lot of stress for those on the spectrum. It could also be because they don’t see the point of the conversation i.e. chit chat which in turn can cause stress. I remember listening to a talk by one young lady where she talked about having a one to one support worker who would talk all the time, on and one they would drone on until one day she hit her 1:1 and she stopped talking. This happened several times and eventually the local authority made her 2:1 one. The young lady goes onto to describe how she then got nagged at in stereo.

Some neuro-typicals love to chit chat they just can’t help themselves. I remember working in one residential service and I was acting as a 2:1 for a young man. The young man let’s call him Tom was non-verbal but alas his support worker was not and loved to talk. The member of staff proceeded to tell me his life story and I responded with grunts to indicate I was listening when really I wanted someone to shoot me (you can tell I’m not that social). After about twenty minutes Tom went up to the member of staff and scratching him along the face. Of course the staff member was horrified and said “Why did you do that”? I think both Tom and I knew why it had happened because for the rest of the walk we walked along in blissful silence.

One young lady described that talking to people as being painful, even more painful than pain itself. So when someone asked her how she was feeling, even if she had a toothache she would say she was fine. Now she said this because then the person would leave her alone. It back fired at one point because she was rushed into hospital with a appendicitis. When she was asked why she didn’t tell anyone? Her response was the appendicitis was not as painful as talking to people. The same young lady tells a story when she had a visit from her parents and her father told her the flat smelt really bad, they pin pointed the smell to the young lady. Her mom stripped her and found that she had a really deep cut on her leg that was infected. Her father told her that next time she bleeds she must tell someone. The same young lady told me that her father was horrified the next time she told her father she was on her period. Be careful what you ask someone who is literal, when will get onto that topic another time.

A great clip on communication: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9A76XstZgc

Top Tip

When you pick up your child from school try not to engage them in conversation. The difficulty is that you want to show an interest in them, show you care. Wait for them to talk to you. Remember I talked about the book All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome https://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Cats-Have-Asperger-Syndrome/dp/1843104814 and just like a cat, if you leave them alone they will come to you, you have to wait until your child is ready to talk to you. If you engage when they are not ready or de-stressed from the rigors of school then you may get a negative reaction. Just give it a try; what do you have to lose.